Patricia Finneran of The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program will take part in the Guth Gafa event “Meet the Experts” presenting the session International Financing, one of the three key areas in documentary production. Sales Agent Peter Jäger of Autlook Filmsales will give the session International Sales and Promotion, and multi-award winning filmmaker John Appel will introduce Documentary Development. These are the three experts for this event, “Meet the Experts” on Saturday 13th June, supported by Screen Producers Ireland.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to non-fiction contemporary-issue filmmakers internationally. Many of the documentaries that are funded by the Sundance Fund have been screened at various international festivals and have been nominated and won awards, for example Which Way Home (USA, 2009) by Rebecca Cammisa (Oscar® Nominee 2010 for Best Feature Documentary); Enemies of the People (Cambodia, UK, 2009) by Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath (Sundance Film Festival 2010/ World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize); Last Train Home (Canada, China, UK, 2009) by Lixin Fan (Sundance Film Festival 2010, Nominee Grand Jury Prize/ IDFA 2009, Best Feature-Length Documentary Award).

The Sundance program encourages the exploration of innovative non-fiction storytelling, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to a broader audience. It supports independent artists both domestically and internationally. The Sundance Documentary Fund is a key program of the Documentary Film Program, dedicated to supporting U.S. and international documentary films that focus on current human rights issues, freedom of expression, social justice, civil liberties, and exploring critical issues of our time.

Within the special programme for film professionals the festival will also schedule One-to-One meetings for Irish filmmakers with Peter Jäger from Autlook Filmsales, and UK distributor Kimberley Anwen from Journeyman Pictures who will discuss projects at different stages and consider their international appeal and potential sales market with the filmmakers. Autlook Filmsales is one of Europe's leading sales agencies for feature documentaries and represents films by leading directors like Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Peter Mettler, Gonzalo Arijón, Georg Misc, Peter Liechti, Andreas Horvath and many more. Journeyman Pictures, one the UK’s largest independent distributors of factual programmes and documentary films offers independent filmmakers and broadcasters a focused distribution outlet.

“We hate to see powerful documentaries shown once and forgotten, which is why we’ve become pioneers in niche marketing.” says Kimberly Anwen.

Pre-Registration is necessary for the One-to-One event and spaces are limited. Please see www.guthgafa.com for further details about the application process.